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Battlestar Galactica Pen and Paper RPG
gerbalblaste writes "Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd. has reached an agreement with Universal Studios Consumer Products Group to produce roleplaying game products based on the enormously successful, critically-acclaimed television series, Battlestar Galactica. Weis' company is known primarily for the recent release of the Serenity Role-Playing Game. From the article: 'The game book will be a full-color hardcover book featuring still images from the series as well as original artwork. It will provide rules for play, character creation, and information about the ship and crew of Galactica as well as the other main characters from the show. A Quickstart Guide will be released in early 2007 with the core product premiering in the spring. Additional products will closely follow the release of the core product. The entire line will be supported by an interactive website. Jamie Chambers (Dragonlance Campaign Setting, Serenity Role Playing Game) is helping lead a team of writers and designers dedicated to re-creating the excitement, drama, and danger of the groundbreaking television series.'"
I love the show, but I'm always leery of license RPGs... A good movie or tv show is not necessarily a good reason or setting for an RPG.
In particular here, with the story not yet resolved, the GM would have to basically invent the motives/reasons for things that we don't know yet. Nothing wrong with that except that it will likely be proved false as we continue to watch the show. We know who the cylons are. So right off the bat you'd have to start changing show canon if you want any suspense on that account.
Also, the setting is rather in where you can be, either on the fleet or maybe a resistance force back on the colonies. Ok, those are entire planets, so maybe there is more potential there.
Your bestiary is likewise fairly limited, you have centurion, raider, biocylon and from there you have to start inventing stuff.
The licensed RPGs I've enjoyed best were ones that had a wealth of material to turn to as well as a resolved story but had large sections of it with time and places where little was known. I liked Iron Crown's Middle Earth RPG (MERP). I didn't care for the first Babylon 5 RPG. The serenity one... is better I suppose, but at least has the wide open solar system where lots of things go on that are outside the scope of what we saw on the show. BSG tends to pretty much account for everyone, there are
That being said I may well end up getting this anyway. Often times these RPGS are more useful as sources of background material, especially if they can get some collaboration from the show's creators on the content. Just not sure I'd run it.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
I flipped through the Serentity RPG, the game mechanics seemed to leave a little to be desired. I wonder how much play testing games like this get?
Why not fork?
RPGs in famous movie settings have to deal with a serious problem. The expectation and their inability to live up to it.
In a movie, you see heros. Those heros are virtually invulnerable and most certainly immortal. Sure, they have their shortcomings and quirks, and sometimes they're just plainly dumb, but they usually come out of "are you effing nuts" risks with but a scratch. They're the best pilots, the best marksmen and of course they always know the wittiest riposte to any kind of insult.
And, most of all, they have a plot to follow, and when they find out something, it's interesting to watch. And that's where it gets tricky most of the time.
Imagine there's something wrong with the ship. Engines don't start. In the show, you see engineers run around the ship doing "diagnosis". You see pretty animations of some kind of leaks or some anomaly and you hear the engineers sprout technobabble what it is. Usually some deus ex machina solution that fixes the plothole just in time to save the show, something you, the spectator, couldn't even come up with because you simply have no idea that this or that actually worked that way.
How do you project that into an RPG? Trying to find out what kind of plot the GM has in mind, what kind of "technological" answer he has for the problem? Usually, it's done with a roll, you find the reason, you solve it. Not fun.
Then there's the plot problem. Galactica deals to some not too small extent with space combat and action elements. This is fun to watch. It's just not fun to play, at least not in a standard table top RPG setting, because it usually comes down to pure chance and luck, the roll of the dice, whether you succeed or fail. There's only so much "tactics" you can employ when facing a foe in the middle of nowhere in space if all you can announce is pretty much "I'm gonna target the second cylon bomber on the right".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.